


Knowing

by Jemisard



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drugs, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-29
Updated: 2010-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemisard/pseuds/Jemisard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft and Sherlock were so close growing up... and then Mycroft did the unforgivable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knowing

“They’re such a lovely pair of boys, Honoria.”

Honoria smiled fondly as she watched Mycroft lift his little brother up to let him look at the caterpillar spinning itself a cocoon from the leaf. “Mycroft was very adamant that he never wanted a little brother but when Sherlock actually came home...”

Mrs Wooster nodded sympathetically. “He’s so good with him, your Mycroft. Some boys get frustrated with a younger brother that wants to constantly be with them.”

“Oh no, Mycroft dotes on Sherlock. And of course they’re both such intelligent boys, I think Mycroft likes being able to guide Sherlock through life.” She sipped her tea, still keeping half an eye on them as they set off across the landscaped garden in search of the next natural wonder. Of course, Mycroft liked guiding Sherlock and she suspected her youngest would need it. Such an intelligent little boy, maybe even brighter than Mycroft which was a little frightening.

Lightning wasn’t meant to strike twice, but it did with her boys. She was glad it had. Sherlock needed all the guidance he could get.

She nodded absently as Mrs Wooster asked her about the new doctor, agreeing that he was very nice, just the sort of man they needed around here, watching the boys walk over to her. “Yes, Mycroft?”

“I’m trying to explain hive micro-societies to Sherlock. May we go and watch the bees so I can explain it?” He said it very seriously, carefully enunciating each word.

“I want to see the queen,” Sherlock added. “She’s bigger and bullies everyone else until she stops producing the suppressant hormones.”

Mrs Wooster tittered about what adorably large words they used for such small boys.

Sherlock fixed her with one of those looks, gaze raking over her. “You’ve changed your lipstick colour and had your nails done at the expensive place Mother says is a waste of money.”

“Don’t they say the darndest things,” Mrs Wooster said, but she was a bit less amused than she had been moments before. Sherlock looked smug.

“Don’t they? Mycroft, you can go and watch but don’t let Sherlock touch them and keep hold of his hand so he doesn’t wander off,” she cautioned.

“Yes, Mummy,” Mycroft said, taking Sherlock’s hand and leading him off towards the beehives.

Honoria honestly dreaded when Sherlock got old enough to start putting those observations together. Next thing she knew, he’d be announcing affairs and scandals left, right and centre.

At least he would have Mycroft there to hold his hand... even when he was too old to want to hold hands.

*~*~*

“No!”

Mycroft winced as the book was hurled into the mirror, looking up to the ceiling patiently and counting to ten before he responded.

“No! They can’t have you! You’re _my_ big brother!” Another book joined the first. “I won’t allow it!”

“Sherlock... it’s just a term. I won’t be their brother, just a mentor figure. It’s important that I have a history of volunteering in the lower socio-economic demographic for my future career development.”

“NO!” The science award trophy smashed into the wall next to the door, but Mycroft didn’t flinch. As much as Sherlock might throw things around him, he’d never actually throw anything _at_ him.

“Sherlock, calm down. Sit down on the bed.”

He didn’t like to use the voice on his little brother, but sometimes he was beyond unreasonable and only demands would work.

Sherlock threw himself into the bed, all childish rage and unkempt curls. Mycroft sat next to him, stroking his hair back, even when Sherlock growled at him like a feral animal. “It’s just called the Big Brother programme. I won’t actually be anyone else’s brother, just spending one afternoon a week helping underprivileged children.”

“But I need you,” Sherlock sulked.

“You’ve got me. And you don’t need me, you’re already brilliant. You explained to me how chemical reactions create the breakdown of metals and dissolution.”

“You already knew.”

“But you didn’t need any help to understand it.”

“And you can read music. And play the violin and piano.”

“I don’t need you for _that_.” He sat up, huffing like only an eight year old could. “Any idiot can do that, I don’t need idiots. I need you to explain things, like why I can’t tell Mr Burt that Mrs Burt is having sex with the man who comes by and says he’s her nephew but isn’t.”

“You know why, Sherlock.”

“And you make things make sense, in my head. You make it sound calm and normal when people tell me I’m a freak because I’m smarter than them and why I didn’t care when that show was about dying people and I thought it was interesting and I should have been crying instead.” He grabbed Mycroft’s hand and pressed it to his forehead. “You make it make sense, so I need you more than they do. You’re my translator to the world. Because people are stupid and society is stupid but you get their stupid and I _don’t_.”

Mycroft rubbed his little brother’s brow, holding his hand with his free hand. Sherlock was too young to be so aware of how different he was. “I’m still going to do the programme, Sherlock.”

“I hate you,” he grumbled. “I’ll hate you forever and ever.”

Mycroft smiled indulgently. “Of course you will. Once you work out what hate feels like?”

“Yes,” he huffed, and Mycroft laughed at him but Sherlock never minded in these situations. “But you’ll make me understand hate.”

“I’ll always help you, Sherlock. Promise.”

*~*~*

All the clinical diagnoses in the world were pointless. People threw around a lot of words, like autistic (that one was clutching at straws), asperger’s syndrome (his language skills were far too high and he had exquisite physical co-ordination), anti-social personality disorder (he was anti-social, but they suspected that was by choice, not nature), disassociative disorder (he was very well aware of himself, thank you) and a bunch of other words that all came from small minded doctors who made the mistake of thinking that they were special, that they were the one specialist that this brilliant, obnoxious boy couldn’t out think.

Honoria despaired of him at times. She wondered if maybe it was her fault, if she should have remarried after their father was gone, if a stable male influence would have helped socialise him. If maybe she should have punished him more for his destructive tendencies during his ‘experiments’. If she’d been too motherly, too open, too generous.

Other times she just sat on the patio, overlooking the garden and listening to tape recordings while Sherlock angrily pounded dischordant music from the piano and later screeched his violin in the way that only someone truly skilled can make an instrument so _awful_.

And then Mycroft would come home and everything would be peace for a while. Sherlock was fifteen, which was difficult for any child, let alone one with Sherlock’s vast mind and sometimes limited attention span. Mycroft, at twenty three, was working in government, some civil service job that she had no doubt he was brilliant at. But he would come home and for a while, Sherlock’s frustration and overwhelming drive would be focused for a while onto his brother, onto listening and learning even if he didn’t care about the corridors of power, because it was _Mycroft_ doing these things and Mycroft explained it in ways that made Sherlock connect with it, understand the importance of it.

She didn’t know what she had done to end up with two boys like she had, but she was endlessly thankful that she’d had them both, not just one.

*~*~*

The hospital called Mycroft, because he was listed as the nearest next of kin that Sherlock had. He really couldn’t afford the time off work, but it was Sherlock and there was nothing more important than his baby brother, so he came down personally to the hospital, where a nice young policeman was saying he wouldn’t press charges this time but he hoped that Sherlock had learned a valuable lesson about little tablets bought from people on street corners.

Mycroft agreed that he had and took him home to sober up. Sherlock lay on the couch for a day without saying a word, just lay there in a sprawl of boneless limbs and broken gaze and Mycroft had sat with him, talking softly to him and brushing his too long curls back from his face.

When asked why he did it, Sherlock simply said, “I wanted to understand.”

Mycroft took that to mean it was an experiment and left it at that.

Until Sherlock started turning up wild eyed and heavy limbed, all nervous energy one moment and exhausted collapse the moment.

He stayed in Mycroft’s town house and screamed at the walls that they were pointless partitions of privacy poorly concealing the dirty secrets of society. He accused the television of being a reprobate drain of the intellect and energy and refused to sleep for five days. He refused to get up for the next week after that.

And Mycroft had had enough. He went into the guest room and flung open the curtains, pulling the blankets off his lanky limbed sibling.

He wasn’t lanky limbed though. He was underweight, wasting away on powders and tablets that Mycroft _knew_ he was abusing but could never catch the proof of on his brother. “Up. Up, showered, breakfast.”

“What’s the point, Mycroft,” he asked in a croaky whisper. “What is the point of everything? It’s tangled webs and stretched elastic and it doesn’t _mean_ anything.”

He sighed and sat next to Sherlock, cupping his face, holding his hand. “Of course it means things, Sherlock.”

“No! No, it doesn’t! It just endlessly chews up facts and spits out conclusions and it never stops! I deprive it of all input and still they’re there, still it races and claws and demands and it chews up facts but if it doesn’t have them it chews up _me_.” He grabbed Mycroft’s shirt, pulling him close and staring at him. “Why does it do it, Mycroft? Make it make sense. Make it work, I need it to work and not just endlessly devour me!”

Mycroft stared at Sherlock. “It’s just how you are, Sherlock. Your mind is powerful and it needs to be used...”

“Wong! Wrong, I don’t use it and still it goes!” He shook him with surprising strength. “I’ve done martial arts, meditation, studied books, learned whole fields and it’s never ending and I need to know why so I can stop it and if I use just a bit more, I might find out why, I need to know why!” he shook him again, pale eyes broken and desperate. “Help me, Mycroft. Make it make sense so I can stop it.”

“I’ll get you into a good rehab facility...”

And with that, Sherlock’s expression closed down. Like it had when they’d seen a deer hit by a car and Sherlock had seemed stunned at first and then just watched, like the only point he could make of death was studying it.

He pulled away from Mycroft.

“Sherlock...”

“You said you’d always make it make sense. You _promised_.”

And he had. He had promised. “I can get you help for your addiction...”

“Symptoms, nothing more, meaningless, treating a symptom does _nothing_ , Mycroft, NOTHING! It is meaningless, because the underlying cause goes unresolved and it simply recurs!” He was shoving his belongings in a bag, still dressed in his pajamas and dressing gown.

“What do you want from me, Sherlock? I don’t know why you’re like this. No one does. You just _are_.”

Sherlock paused and drew himself up haughtily. “You’re an idiot. Just like the rest of them. And you’re fat.” He stalked out of the room, out of the townhouse, doors banging after him.

The words hurt.

Because they sounded an awful lot like “I hate you.”

And this time, Sherlock knew what it meant.


End file.
